TOS: TheHike to My Selaya
by SuperluminalM42
Summary: Spock allows his daughter to go hiking alone in the Vulcan reset. Uhura is not pleased.


This story is a sequel to "Enterprise Plus One" and takes place 10 years after that story.

Ahadi Uhuru was beginning to feel the heat of the early afternoon Vulcan sun. She took out one of her two canteens, it was almost empty. She was not doing what her father told her to do. Practice water discipline, small sips each time. But that shouldn't be a problem, she thought, two more hours and she would reach a spring, the only water source on the trail to the Lodge at Mt. Selaya. She started to take a step, then she froze. She heard it again. She turned and looked back up the dried river bed she was following. She had that feeling, something was there, stalking her. She started on her way and made a mental note to remain extra vigilant.

Nearly three hours later, she saw the rock formation that marked the location of the spring. Upon rounding the formation, there it was, spewing out from between two rock layers. Cold, clear water. Without thinking, she ran and stood under the small waterfall, mouth open, letting the water cool her and quench her thirst.

As she stepped out, she realized too late, she had let her guard down. The beast attacked before she could move. She was pinned on her back. Her right hand groped through her robes for her phaser. Fangs only inches from her face, then a tongue licking her face. She twisted her head back and forth.

"Stop it Teela, stop it...ewww that's gross." She wriggled out from under the over grown sehlot, sat up beside it. "I hate it when you do that. What are you doing here anyway? Is dad with you? I told him I want to do this alone."

She looked up the river bed and saw no sign of Spock.

"Oh, well, I'm glad you're here, it is lonely out here. We better hurry if we want to reach the caves by dark." She filled her canteens and picked a few tonot roots that grew near the spring.

It was getting dark when they reached the cave where she planned on spending the night. The thin Vulcan air was cooling off fast. Once inside, she rolled out her sleeping bag.

"Oh, how stupid." It was too wet to sleep in. Teela curled against the far wall of the cave. Ahida crawled over.

"I hope you don't mind. How can the desert be so hot and cold?" She snuggle up to her. Teela, a native of Vulcan, gave off quite a bit of heat. Exhausted by the days hike, she was asleep in moments.

"Nyota." Spock said as he stared at the screen.

"Good to see you, Spock." Uhura still was not used to seeing the Vulcan with shoulder length hair. "How is Ahida doing?"

"I suppose she is doing well."

"You suppose? What do you mean?"

"This morning I dropped her off at the trail head for the Mt. Selaya hike."

"Who is with her?"

"I sent Teela to watch over her."

"Teela? Your pet seylot? My baby is in the middle of the Vulcan desert, with a fat seylot as protection?"

"Ten years old is hardly a baby, and Teela is not that fat."

"Mr. you didn't carry her for nine months across two time lines and you just toss her out in the desert?"

"She insisted on doing it alone. She is, after all, more Vulcan than human."

"More Vulcan than human. Oh, you just love throwing that out every chance you get. Spock children insist on a lot of things parents should not let them do. Did you even think about the wild animals?"

"Yes, as a precaution, I gave her a phaser."

"A phaser? Are you out of your Vulcan mind? You gave a child a phaser."

"It is low power and locked on stun."

"You don't know that child like I do. She'll take it a part and figure out someway to vaporize herself. I'm on my way.""

Spock started to say something, but was now staring at blank screen.

The Enterprise bridge was in shambles. The refit was in progress yet still months from completion. Uhura picked her way around tool boxes and assorted equipment. Captain Decker was supervising the placement of the navigation station.

"Captain," Uhura said, "request permission to take emergency leave. My child is lost in the Vulcan desert."

"Granted,". Decker said, "we don't need a com. officer right now. Oh, in case you weren't aware, Admiral Kirk is on the U.S.S. Neil Tyson. He's leaving for Vulcan to attend a conference in about an hour. I'll notify the Tyson's Captain of your situation."

"I would appreciate that Captain."

The early afternoon sun was already hot. Ahida had drank most of her water. She stopped to rest on a boulder, Teela was by her side. Teela threw her head back, her nostrils flared open. She had caught the sent of something.

"What is it girl?" Ahida asked. Teela bolted into a nearby Boulter field. "Teela, come back. Where are going?" she watched helplessly as she disappeared into boulders.

"Oh, that figures." A few moments later Teela came back, dragging the carcass of a meter long lizard. She lay down beside Ahida and began to devour her lunch.

"Teela, that's gross." She looked away and remembered that last summer she had witnessed Teela eat a small rodent in one bite. Her father was there and told her, "Teela is intelligent but she is an animal and does what animals do. IDIC teaches we must accept such things,"

Ahida took a tonot root from her pocket and nibbled at it. She looked at Teela, "This isn't much better."

When Teela finished her meal, they started on their way.

Spock was sitting at a stone desk and trying to memorize one of the many scrolls required to achieve the Kolinar. He looked up, T'Pau, looking more like a statue than a living being was staring at him.

"Shpock," he said, "you seem distracted."

"I apologize. I had a rather emotional discussion with Ahida's mother last night. She did not agree with my decision to allow Ahida to go on the Mt. Selaya hike alone. When I reminded her that she's more Vulcan than human, she became very irrational. I believe that she is on her way to Vulcan."

"Shpock, there is usually a logical reason for an irrational response. Ahida has spent most of her life on Earth, she is not acclimatized to our world. If I were her mother, my control may falter as well." She picked up the scroll Spock was studying, rolled it up. "You are excused from further study today. Go, see to your daughter."

"You are correct. It was illogical of me to send her on the hike." He rose and started to leave.

"Shpock, you continue to refer to Ahida as more Vulcan. Do you think it wise to remind people of that?"

"Again, you are correct. I shall refrain from such language in the future."

The thin air and heat were beginning to take their toll. Ahida's body was screaming for water. Her legs were starting to ache and she could feel blisters forming on her feet. Even Teela was starting to slow down. They rounded a bend, the river bed opened into a large dry lake bed. Ten kilometers away, Mt. Selaya towered into the sky. At it's base, like a green emerald glinting in the sun, was the Lodge at Mt. Selaya.

Ahida staggered a few more meters and slumped against a large Boulder. She looked at the lodge. It was deceptively close. She hugged Teela.

"I'll never be a good Vulcan. It's to far. I can't make it." She looked up at the lodge again. It seemed even further away. She hooked her two thumps around the chain that hung around her neck and pulled out her emergency beacon. She opened the protective cover and was about to activate it. In seconds a transporter at the lodge would lock on and in minutes she would be at the Lodge's restaurant. Food from a hundred worlds would be at finger tips.

Teela sat up, her nostrils open wide.

"Oh no. You can't be hungry again?"" She looked back up the gulley. Three figures in desert robes were coming around the bend. Teela darted towards them.

"No Teela, they're just other hikers." Teela ran straight to one of the figures, came to a skidding halt, rolled over and offered her belly up, for a belly rub.

One of the figures ran forward and called out, "Ahida!"

"Mom? What are you doing here?"

Uhura embraced her child. "I was so worried when your father told me he had left you in the desert."

"Mom, I'm alright. Look, there's the lodge. I'll be there in an hour."

After giving Teela an obligatory belly rub, Spock stood at Uhura's side. Both adults looking rather skeptical. Ahida looked at her father.

"Maybe two hours?"

The third figure came up, threw back his hood. "Hey kiddo."

"Uncle Jim!" Ahida jumped up and hugged the Admiral.

"OK, where is it?" Uhura dug through the pockets of Ahida's robe, pulled out the phaser and waved it in Spock's face. "You gave this to a child?"

"I'd have given her a bigger one." Kirk said. Uhura gave him a dirty look. "Well, maybe not that much bigger."

"Ughh." Uhura rolled her eyes.

Kirk sensed a bit of tension in the air, that needed to be defused. "Hey, everything is OK." He muffed Ahida's hair. "So, you didn't make it to the lodge. No big deal, you can do it next year. This is no place for a reunion. There's a nice restaurant at the lodge. My treat. And they have ice cream."

Ahida's eye's lit up. Kirk pulled out his communicator. Spock was looking at him with a stare that would make T'Pau proud.

"Spock, it's hot. Even by Vulcan standards. In ice cream, there's got to be some logic." Kirk looked into the Vulcan's eye's and saw that slight change only Kirk could see. He opened his communicator.

"Kirk to Tyson. Site to site transport. Four," he looked at Teela lounging in the middle of the group. "Make that five, to beam to the Lodge at Mt. Selaya."

A moment later the desert was empty and the ice cream was waiting.


End file.
